In a development which marks a new era of sorts for the Internet of Things (IoT) category of connected devices, detectives in an Arkansas murder case have sought a search warrant asking bigwig online retailer Amazon to hand over data -- audio or records -- from an Echo device belonging to the suspected murderer.

In a recent announcement, Chinese smartphone maker Gionee has said that it has launched a new metal-and-leather handset called the M2017. The handset is now available for preorder in China, though Gionee has not yet officially disclosed whether or when the handset will be launched in other markets across the world.

In a recent announcement, Cyanogen, Inc. has disclosed that it will shut down all its operations by the end of 2016. The announcement implies that services and servers related to Cyanogen's nightly builds will soon be shuttered, and no security updates will be rolled out in the future.

Cyanogen is the company responsible for the commercialization of the open-source CyanogenMod project.

Two shadowy hacking groups - Lizard Squad and Phantom Squad - have issued a number of threats of attacks on Christmas Day, to shut down PlayStation Network (PSN) and Xbox Live.

The threats of Christmas Day attacks, evidently to ruin the holidays for gamers, have been issued by the infamous Lizard Squad and Phantom Squad hacking groups via several Twitter accounts affiliated with the two groups.

The Sydney Morning Herald has revealed in a recent report that a fine of AUD$3 million (USD$2.2 million) has been imposed on Valve by Australia's federal court, over Steam refunds.

According to the report, US-based Valve has been ordered by an Australian court to pay AUD$3 million in fine, after the company's lost a legal battle against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) earlier this year.

During the course of a recent interview with The Verge, Google executive Jeff Chang - the company's product manager of Android Wear - said that two new flagship smartwatches will be launched by the company in the 2017 first quarter.

According to the details shared by Chang in the interview, the two new smartwatches to be launched by Google will be the company's flagship Android Wear 2.0 devices. The smartwatches will be the first devices to be launched with the updated Android Wear platform.